Are You Paranoid Enough About Web Security to Use This New OS?

As many of you probably already know, yesterday version 1.0 of an open source OS called "Tails" was released. It saves zero programs, files, history - nothing. Every boot is like logging onto a brand new computer for the very first time. The point being to make the machines Tails runs on super secure. Do you think OSes like this one have a future? Would you use it?

Just to be clear here. Tails is nothing more than a customized Debian Linux distribution. It is a Live disk based OS focused on not leaving traces on disks or thumb drives. It routes traffic through The Onion Router (TOR). User created content is stored only in RAM. It also includes encryption tools and other software designed for secure use.

My only issue is with TOR which according to some sources has been compromised by the NSA and other baddies. In addition, the use of TOR makes you an automatic target for the NSA since its use is enough to get you on the person of interest list.

>>My only issue is with TOR which according to some sources has been compromised by the NSA and other baddies. In addition, the use of TOR makes you an automatic target for the NSA since its use is enough to get you on the person of interest list.

Yes, I believe that both are true, personally.

The reason that TOR is more widely maligned by the TLGs (three letter guys), is that they have some level of infiltration. Probably not complete infiltration, but enough that if they care about you, they can find you. If you look at the documentation on Tor's weaknesses in the blog, it shows that your anonymity can be compromised by global entities -- especially if you are not careful about how you use TOR.

In any event, use of TOR is equivalent to wearing a bull's eye until enough people can be convinced to use it so that the burden of finding the really interesting suspects is increased.

Neither do I, but that doesn't mean I am ok with my data being taken. We already know the NSA supplies information collected on foreign entities to business interests in the US in order to bolster their trading position and provide bargaining leverage.

We have competition in the business world. A list of clients we are grooming and our business strategy is information our competition would love to have.

Finally, your statement seems predicated on the idea that only governmental anti crime agencies are the ones doing the snooping. Identity theft, credit card fraud, and banking theft are very real concerns in today's world. While you may not be doing anything illegal, I promise you that plenty of people are. It's a good idea to protect yourself from these people.

It was paid for by the USA, DARPA and probably the NSA, although getting
a line item from the latter might be a bit difficult. For various
reasons it was far superior to anything else that was out there.

The "onion" routing used in TOR was proven in theory and now in practice
to no longer be suitable for government work as the originator of a
transaction can be traced with just a few routers; Enough routers under
a central control means the originator (IP, provider, geocode, with a
court order "if needed" --> address, billing information) can be found
in almost real time.

The original use of TOR was to protect your location from (other)
governments. It is no longer suitable for that. It was never designed to
protect from malware, or stupidity, and it did not encrypt end-to-end.
It now enforces encryption through httpseverywhere however and there are
many applications (ssh, IRC etc) that work flawlessly with it.

The next generation will probably use some form of garlic routing and
padding. Garlic routing makes traffic analysis much more difficult.

Use of TOR, particularly running a router, helps preserve the anonymity
of those that need to be anonymous by making it harder to find them. I
knew a guy from Rwanda 20 years ago... his government considered his
very existence illegal. Most humans would disagree with that particular
nightmare, but there are also reporters, humanitarians, religious and
political groups all over the world that need anonymity too.